Photo: WILLIAM WES/Getty Images
“I hope this improves other people’s lives,” says Rodney Gorham of the brain implant that has already changed his own existencein a message that you have written on a screen by selecting the letters with your eyes and clicking on the words with your mind.
A few years ago, This 63-year-old Australian received an irremediable diagnosis: he suffers from Charcot’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive paralysis of the respiratory muscles, trunk, arms and legs.
The disease will not kill him outright, points out his wife, Carolyn Gorham, because he has an extremely rare form of the disease. “So he can live another 20 years. His brain works fine, but he can’t even scratch his nose.
Space and AI is cool 🙄but #BrainTech is the hottest new sector. The internal universe remains a mystery https://t.co/4bRQrecppO
— Thomas Oxley (@tomoxl) March 29, 2023
millimeter brain implant
Thanks to the “stentrode”, a brain implant that the American company Synchron has been testing with patients for two years, Rodney Gorham hopes to be able to continue consulting the Internet, watching videos, sending messages or even playing video games for a long time.
Without this cutting-edge technology, life for the former sports car and travel enthusiast “would be hell on earth. pure and simple torture“, sums up his wife.
The stentrode is an eight-millimeter-diameter device that is inserted into the brain through the jugular vein to detect neural activity. It is connected to a small box, which acts as a receiver and transmitter, located under the skin, at chest level. For now, another box is attached to his skin, along with a small server.
Lack of trials and technology
Synchron aims to obtain the agreement of the health authorities next year to market the final product, without cables or external devices.
The clinical trials have been conclusive but there is still a need, among other things, to establish a universal language of computer commands for thought.
To click, “patients have to think about moving a part of their body, like kicking a ball or making a fist (…) But for the same movements, everyone mobilizes their brain a little differently,” explains Tom Oxley, the founder of Synchron.
“The challenge facing us today is to standardize a system that works for millions of people, not just one patient,” he adds from his New York office.
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